PS 3529 
.358 F7 
1919 



£%^ FORGOTTEN 
THRESHOLD 

^ Journal of 
f^rthurMiddietoiL 




Class 



BookJB_5£.Zi 



GoipghtN^_ 



CrOEffilGHT DEPOSm 



THE FORGOTTEN THRESHOLD 



THE FORGOTTEN 
THRESHOLD 

A Journal oj Arthur Middleton . ^^^^^ 




NEW YORK 

E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 

68l FIFTH AVENUE 






Copyright. 1919. 
By E. P. BUTTON & COMPANY 



AU Rights Resened 



Printed in the United States of America 



:EB -5 1919 
©CLA512241 



TO 

W. S. B. 

FOR SUBSTANTIAL EMBODIMENT 



PREFATORY NOTE 

Before Arthur Middleton died he 
gave me this record among others 
in the belief that it would help to 
tell me what he had always known 
in the silences, yet could never in 
life transmute into the friendly coun- 
ters of speech. During the last years 
of his all too brief experience of his 
friends, more than once he shyly 
sought to tell what he knew, yet 
always silence claimed him, and 
nothing but the wonder of his eyes 
revealed the dream that consumed 

[vii] 



his heart. Because beauty claims 
these words in a deeper knowledge 
than we had before, I have tran- 
scribed this fragment of them here, 
confident that in these white intui- 
tions of his youth there is a revela- 
tion of the Light behind beauty 
beyond our poor knowledge and still 
poorer faith. I have omitted only 
.what was most sacred to the priva- 
cies of his heart and our affection. 
He was of the old faith and would 
have wished had he published these 
pages to have expressed his entire 
and passionate loyalty to the Roman 
Cathohc Church in faith and deed, 
and to have disclaimed any word 
therein which conflicted with the 



vm 



intimacies of its truth. I can do no 
more than to echo his wish, and 
mourn the unhappy chance which 
took him from us on an April tide, 
though it befell on the Easter that 
he loved and at that hour when the 
flaming symbol of the Divine Sacri- 
fice was setting in the west. So the 
passion of the sun and tide which 
reflected his belief witnessed the 
consummation of his great desire. 

The Editor. 



[i^] 



THE FORGOTTEN THRESHOLD 



THE FORGOTTEN THRESHOLD 
THE JOURNAL 

(N. B. — On the opening pages of the 
blank book in which this journal is contained 
there is a short fragment which bears no 
relation that I can discover to the entries 
that follow, and I am inclined to believe 
that it is the beginning of an autobiography 
which Middleton never continued. In my 
uncertainty, however, I print it, and accord- 
ingly it is transcribed below. 

— ^The Editor.) 

Fragment. — I was not more than 
three years old v^hen the sunlight first 
made me happy as it stole through 
the curtains and over the coverlet 
till it kissed my lips and wrapped me 
in its warm embrace. Then I would 

[i] 



fall asleep again and my dreams, if 
I dreamed at all, were white and 
faintly stirred me to a smile. I 
never tried to catch the sunbeams, 
for I felt their gold in my heart, nor 
could they have been nearer than 
they were, being associated with my 
mother's watchfulness as she stole 
in to smile upon my slumbers and 
claim the second silent unconscious 
kiss. On Sunday morning they would 
be freighted with a quiet whiter light, 
more peaceful and hushed to the 
feeling of the day, and somehow 
the peace was guarded with finger on 
lip throughout the house, so that it 
was implicit in my nest of images 
long before reason took note of it ot 

[2] 



sought to explain it to my conscious- 
ness. Once again as a boy of fifteen 
I knew it with a catch of delighted 
and almost tearful surprise when I 
stroked the breast of a wounded 
pigeon who found shelter in my room. 
The world is not as quiet in these 
days, nor is the hum of traffic in 
the mart attuned so kindly to the 
flow of light as when it ran so gently 
by the bedside of the dreaming 
boy. ... 

(The journal now follows, written in a 
small cramped hand, without paragraphing 
or division. I omit the first few entries as 
purely personal. Middleton had gone to a 
group of remote western islands, and these 
notes are the fruit of his sojourn there. — 

The Editor. 
[3l 



July 5. 
Yesterday found me on the island 
with its silences, and last night the 
host was red and sacrificial and rode 
on a thunder cloud. This afternoon 
the planets go singing through my 
flesh and my song of praise has 
widened to the arches of the sun. 
The sea is moaning slowly on the 
sand. I stripped to the cool salt air 
for the first time. . . . Walking I 
found my way out on the long gray 
dunes. 

July 6. 

On the dunes today with my 

mother. My hand swept idly over 

the soft white sand, shifting the order 

[4] 



of many thousands of starry worlds. 
What a chord of music if one could 
but hear it in its entirety! As it was, 
I caught wonderful echoes that would 
light the beauties of many a sunrise. 
The silent man reminds me of Synge 
in his drifting life and the fires 
glowing in his eyes. Today I saw 
the beauty of a flower. . . . Some 
day I shall write a play about the 
stars. The action will burn in their 
seedtime and blow on the winds of 
Fate with all its ironies. . . . Tonight 
in the sitting room I heard in my 
heart the singing of the sands. It is 
on the shifting desert, I feel, that we 
shall discover the secret origin of 
language. How the infinitely aspir- 

[5] 



ing music must sound tonight along 
the dunes' 

July 7. 

The night before last after I retired 
I felt that lifted feeling physically 
which represents the beating of the 
tides. Last night it coalesced with 
the singing of the sands. At Mass 
this morning the voices at the Credo 
thundered out Et Homo f actus est in 
a torrent of living sound. At the 
elevation I saw a thin white flame 
rise from the uphfted chalice and 
disappear. It takes a beam of light 
one hundred and eight years to 
travel from Arcturus to the earth. 
Are we similar traveling beams, and 

[6] 



is death merely our arrival on another 
planet which we illumine? Today I 
read aloud on the cliffs from the 
glories of Plato's Pbaedrus. 

July 8. 
In the morning I wandered onto 
the dunes leading out toward Wonder 
Island, but was driven off by the 
terns who were nesting. . . . The 
billows of the wind today mingled in 
me with the sands and the tide, so 
that I experienced from a new angle 
Landor's "We are what suns and 
winds and waters make us." . . . 

July 9. 
My life will see much traveling, 

[7I 



July 10, 
Morning on the dunes. A cold 
clear bath while mists drove over the 
sands. Returning home, as I came 
to the deep sand on the road, I 
perceived the mystery of the resur- 
rection of the body. In death there 
is no physical decay. The singing 
planets of the human body merely 
part to combine in other songs, 
recurring again in the end to their 
old disposal and song, exchanging 
other worlds for their own once 
more, and recurring to the first motif 
of the symphony. I was sad this 
afternoon for the will failed me in 
my work. Sitting on the sand this 
morning the singing dunes had at- 

[8] 



tained to the harmony of silence. All 
at once a little wisp of seaweed — 
hardly more than a thread — started 
to beat time upon the sands. And 
then I knew and saw it to be in 
its happy beating the pulse that 
governed the music of the stars. 
Can the heart conduct the symphony 
of the body? Tonight the sun set, 
borne away — a Grail — by angels from 
the questing Galahad. There was 
a great silence in my heart as I sat 
in the crowded room. 

July II, 
A day of northeast wind and up- 
ward thunder. The joy of the wind 
was in me, and I lost the sense of 

[9] 



space. The air was so buoyant that 
it was closely kin to the sea. . . .To- 
day I succeeded a little better with 
my will. I had a strange sensation 
this afternoon, which told me that 
bare lonely places are the only places 
to write drama, since there only can we 
find the pure dynamic forces of life 
disentangled from the subtle and 
complicated web of human ambi- 
tions and interests. The air was very 
thin and clear at twilight, but the 
sun was hidden in the clouds. . . . 

July 12. 

. . . There was a great silence this 
evening in the crowded room. Clos- 
ing my eyes, I raised the upper lids 

[lo] 



as far as possible without seeing 
material things, and so saw myself 
in fearful wonder elevating the host 
and chalice on high. I know now 
the inner meaning of **Domine, non 
sum dignus ut intres sub tecta mea,'* 
Under these two arched roofs of the 
eyes hidden from all light save Light, 
there is a secret dwelling. ... A 
day of close-shrouded palling fog — 
a chrism confirming the strength of 
beauty. 

July 15. 
This morning the wind blew 
through the fields of grass like count- 
less angels in the courts of heaven. 
Shadow and color and light and 

[11] 



movement dancing before the first 
syllable of the Name. A gull flew 
down almost to my hand, and the 
sunhght thundered in my ears. Last 
night the sea was sadly purifying 
the earth. I now understand the 
Washer of the Ford. Majesty lies 
in darkness, and grief is only the 
privilege of seeing Majesty. Today 
on the porch with closed eyes buried 
in my hands the winds swept over 
me in a torrent of living light. A 
symphony is a wonderful symbol. 
In the first place, it is music. In 
the second place, it is a name of 
praise with four syllables. Then it 
completes a cycle, and returns on a 
higher plane to the motif with which 
[12] 



it began. It is the history of a soul, 
and in its last movement typifies 
the resurrection of the body, by 
means of this very return, — a return 
to the order and disposal in which it 
was created and which it now re- 
assumes to praise its Creator for 
all eternity by the harmony of the 
original Thought. I looked at twi- 
light into the tiny white heart of a 
flower that grew among the grasses, 
and out of the heart pulsed the 
Sacred Body in wounds all glorified, 
with Hands outstretched conducting 
the music of the worlds. I know 
now that the flower was a chalice. 
The sadness of it cannot die as the 
Man can, and I know that it is with 

[i3l 



me ready to be shared. As I write 
this, there is a mist within my room. 
I always sleep now like one ready to 
soar. In the crowded room tonight 
I felt myself making the movements 
of swimming, as if the air were 
water and I an expert swimmer. 

July 14. 
Views oj the unveiled heavens alone 

forth bring 
Prophets who cannot sing, 

A day of tempestuous wind and 
rain with all the keen dynamic life 
of time poised 'mid eternities. The 
happiest of my days batthng with 
the elements in wonderful silences. 

[14] 



At Mass with wonder the shining 
of the Host. My eyes were veiled 
from the chalice, but I felt two angels 
— guarding the acolytes. Again at 
the Credo the thunder of Et Homo 
Jactus est. With Shelley in the 
afternoon and a perilous walk on 
the cliffs. ... I am gaining in de- 
tachment. The desire and passion 
for solitude grows and I meditate 
a winter on the islands. How un- 
worthy I am to partake of mysteries ! 
They fill me with fear, for it is hard 
for the body to five in eternity. In 
the evening with Gordon Craig. Is 
he right about masks? A mask is 
a symbol, but a face may be a sacra- 
ment. The Mass, after all, is the 

[15] 



supreme dream and drama of the 
world. Sadness is majesty, as I 
found the other night, and majesty 
is always impenetrable, for it is a 
secret full of awe and mysterious 
silence. Tonight I see that great 
drama, whether it be a tragedy or 
no, must reveal time poised in in- 
finity. Beauty, I think, contains 
everything save the human will, 
and it is the ideal of the will to be 
thus contained and of beauty to 
be the container. ... In the su- 
preme drama of Gethsemane and 
Calvary, Christ used the human 
body as the supreme visible instru- 
ment of drama. 

[i6] 



July 15. 
. . . Tonight the fog broke through 
the sunset and scattered gold across 
the sea. Clouds hung over the 
cliffs. ... I prayed through the sun- 
set, and won a victory for the will. 

July 16. 
Last night in the darkness I 
learned many things. The human 
will is the unit, the core of flame 
which binds all elements together. 
It is sad because it is the force of 
impact tearing things from their 
detached and comfortable places and 
placing them in new relations. It 
is the magnet, the summoning voice, 

[17] 



our own conscience, the expression 
of Majesty. It disposes reluctant 
and conflicting notes in harmony. 
And we have control of it given into 
our hands. And then, too, I learnt 
that words are worlds. At every 
breath, nay, by the slightest thought, 
we create planets. Pray that they 
harmonize! They have power. Are 
they angels? They convey our mes- 
sages, but their harmony of inter- 
woven song and meaning was lost 
at Babel to our ears. Yet by them 
if our will is strong and we do not 
fail in deeds we may take our part 
in the symphony as truly as life 
itself. And so we must not use them 
idly. How can anyone dare to tell 
[i8] 



a lie? One begins to see how God 
is a Name. I felt before how the 
secret of language was to be found 
among the sands. It is because the 
sands are the nearest and most 
visible planets we possess. Words 
are planets. But planets are sands 
on the shore of eternity. Words are 
sands. We are little words made 
flesh, little echoes in the image of 
the great Word made Flesh. His 
creation is the complete echo made 
flesh, His Image and likeness which 
He contemplates. And so we are 
in our measure part of the song made 
flesh, and the little common words 
that we use are our brothers. 

[19] 



July 77. 

The sunset tonight was a glorious 
crucifixion after the day of clouds. 
It was human in its beckoning. I 
cannot find the secret of the moon, 
but it reminds me of Lionel's phrase, 
if it be his, "golden mediocrities." 
Is it the astral embodiment of "They 
also serve who only stand and wait"? 
Why is it that the little human 
beauties of Nature pass me by as 
entities, and that I seek bare places? 
Is there a parallel in my personal 
attitude toward all but those who 
are specially dear to me? I thought 
of how I looked down on the city 
from the mountain in May, and felt 
the whole city to be my prayer. It 

[20] 



had been given into my control for 
a few minutes, and the only worthy 
use to which I could put it was to 
offer it up with a prayer for my 
people and all the desire of my 
heart that the prayer would be 
answered. The half-million souls 
with all their dreams were under my 
care then, and their acts were mine. 
So Httle are cities, and so little I 
found my worthiness that I could 
not hide my tears. Later I crossed 
to the height looking down on the 
cemetery. The world was silent 
save for the flaming heart of the city 
pulsing below, and reflecting the 
Flaming Heart above as the sun set. 
The woodpeckers did not fear me, 

[21] 



and I sank slowly and deeply into 
God. I think that some day I 
shall know His wounds. I cannot 
understand why I was delivered 
from temptation at the moment that 
the city was put into my hands. 

July i8, 

... I bathed on the dunes on 

Wonder Island. The sun set tonight 

sacramentally just as it set that 

night at when I failed to speak. 

Never had I felt stronger, but some- 
thing held me back from telling him 
how the dearest wish of my life was 
that he should participate in the 
Holy Eiucharist. The flame was in 
my hands to lay upon his heart, but 

[22] 



something bade me wait. I dis- 
trusted it, and asked him to walk 
with me on the shore. The thunder 
of the tide and the moon were too 
strong. Why could I not have told 
him? We were silent for hours 
while his heart lay with the Titanicy 
and even his little daughter was 
quiet in the room. 

July ig. 
The stars are the dust rubbed off 
from human souls. **Dust unto 
dust thou shalt return." At the last 
judgment, they will fly together in 
an angelic hosting, and clothe once 
more the souls which moved in them, 
and our souls will rule their songs. 

[23] 



Human suffering is the friction of 
angels making stars. ... I know 
now that the end of one's forty days 
is not complete knowledge, but only 
a clear indication of the road. The 
joy is in that, and also the sorrow. 
It is the direction given to the will, 
orders to be so carefully obeyed. 
This is the greatest discovery of all. 
Words do not reveal it. It is abso- 
lutely prosaic, though it is eternal 
beauty. But what I have written 
does not reflect it even faintly as it 
seems to me. Read Hello this after- 
noon. The freedom of the dunes this 
morning seemed to extend more than 
is usual. Later I read from Plato's 
"Symposium." 
[24] 



July 20. 
. . . The proverbial symbol of 
impermanence is writing upon sand. 
What could be more gloriously per- 
manent? To have one's message 
spelled out by singing planets, to 
write upon the stars. It is so that 
our songs have immortality. ** Verba 
scripta manent" takes on a majestic 
significance. Are not joy and sad- 
ness the same? The only difference 
is one of rapidity. Sadness is made 
up of the long, slow, majestic chords 
of the song. It seems to me that 
when a wheel seems to cease motion, 
and finally attains a state of motion- 
lessness, it is perhaps merely turning 
into a terrible speed which we cannot 

[25] 



perceive. It is the turning of an 
hour-glass. When I am dead, I 
wish only my faults to be chronicled, 
for these alone have any value for 
the world. I have dreamt always of 
cycles of infinities. As a decimal 
always tends by evolution towards 
a number, so also we evolve toward 
an infinity. Yet at that goal another 
infinity starts, as another infinity 
starts in numbers, — the symbol of 
patience after all. 

"Unto the man of yearning thought 
And aspiration, to do nought 
Is in itself almost an act, — 
Being chasm-fire and cataract 
Of the souFs utter depths unsealed. 
Yet woe to thee if once thou yield 
Unto the act of doing nought!" 

[26] 



Read Hello and Elia. I am learning 
how to see in crowds. These past 
few days I have succeeded in with- 
drawing into life for long periods in 
the midst of a general conversation, 
yet my absence was not noted in 
the least. Out of it I hope will 
develop the ability to be with life 
always in the tangle and confusion 
of city circumstance. This after- 
noon I read Pbxdrus aloud on a 
sunny cliff, and in the evening read 
aloud Keats' "I stood tiptoe" on 
the green heights in the wind and 
the rain. Rossetti's lines do not forbid 
a life of contemplation, but rather 
encourage it as distinguished from 
quietism. . . . Through the summer 

[27] 



I am to see the Crucifixion. How I 
envy St. Francis the Stigmata! Even 
as a little boy I desired them — but 
I shall never be able perhaps to love 
passionately enough. The nights 
that I cried as a little fellow without 
knowing why, just because I loved, 
were nearer than I shall ever be 
again. 

July 21. 

At Benediction after Mass today 
I saw the Wonder in all Humanity 
with Light surrounding It, and I 
shook with an awful thunder of 
sound. . . . Today I have been 
happy to tears, and in the blue 
afternoon on the cliffs with my 
mother, I shared "Endymion" and 

[28] 



"Epipsychidfon." ... I do not un- 
derstand why silence is spoken of 
as a precept. To me it is the living 
attribute of God. . . . How nobly 
scornful is Sir Aubrey De Vere's 
phrase, "witless ecstasies"! 

July 22, 
Simply a day of hard work. But 
I was happy in it. In an odd way 
I felt as I wrote all day on the smooth 
white paper that I was stroking the 
sleek breasts of doves. Tonight the 
steady patter of the rain upon the 
eaves. 

July 25. 

A day of hard routine work. . . . 

Tonight in the inky darkness I 

[29] 



walked to the postoffice in the thun- 
dering wind and rain and surf, and 
learned how the deeps can praise 
the Lord. I have always felt the 
wonder of that psalm. 

July 24, 

Rose at 4:30 and saw the sun rise 
a pure and shimmering symbol of 
the Host above the silver outline of 
Wonder Island. The day was dumb. 
A little boy has come whose face is 
his sacrament. What a song he 
must sing! I look forward to the 
morrow as a day of special grace 
and wonder. . . . 

July 25. 

It is evident to me that music is 
wrong before a play or during inter- 

[30] 



missions. But it is necessary until 
our dramatists provide some other 
prelude. That prelude must be a 
beautiful setting of silence for a few 
moments showing the protagonist 
under the light of eternity. In the 
beginning all words contained a 
spiritual " import," — were angels. At 
Babel many fell. Now all our spirit- 
ual words are material words grown 
out of their meanings. When ex- 
pression becomes passion, it is the 
passion of creation, clothing itself in 
images as God does through eternity 
in the Passion of Creation. This 
is near the heart of life's most awful 
secret, but words conceal it except 
from experience. For Passion pro- 

[31] 



ceeds from Creation as Preservation 
proceeds from both, though they are 
all from Eternity in the Unity of 
the Godhead. All my planets at 
the contemplation of This are danc- 
ing before the throne. The thunder- 
ous rhythm of their music is shaking 
me physically like the engines of a 
steamer in shallow water. Every 
atom struggles against the law of 
cohesion. God loves the beautiful 

boy. His name is Henry R . The 

Greeks, Emerson says, called the 
world Cosmos, Beauty. Reading this 
on the veranda this afternoon, I 
closed my eyes and sank contentedly 
into life. When I returned the faces 
were foreign, and even my mother 

[32] 



never knew. On the dunes this 
morning I heard the silence of Eter- 
nity on the edge of time. I think it 
is a pine forest. Babel took away 
the Word, until It came to earth, 
and in material form took on supreme 
Spirit coming from the Father. . . . 



July 26, 
I wish I could raise a singing altar 
of planets by some great sacrifice. 
My fingers drummed upon the sands 
this morning a crude and simple 
rhythm. I thought of its influence 
in displacing planets, and of the al- 
most infinite musical variations that 
were set in motion, and then I com- 

[33] 



pared my crude thrumming with the 
majestic thunders of the sea, and 
realized the insupportable beauty 
of absolute music. A dog talks by 
smell. There are vibrations of smell, 
as well as of sound or of heat or of 
light. And the bhnd reveal vibra- 
tion of touch, the holiest of the senses. 
We talk now by sound, but are 
learning to talk by heat and light. 
When shall we learn to talk by smell 
and touch? Flowers, too, talk by 
smell. There is nothing but vibra- 
tion in the image of God, for LIFE IS 
NOTHING MORE THAN THE 
TREMBLING OF HIS BEAUTY. 
The awful speed of Truth hardens 
into fact. Words must not say more. 

[34] 



A dog taught me this, — Prince, the 
companion of the silent man. One 
should be a priest when he marries 
two ideas. In any one of the planets 
within the singing tissue of my flesh 
are Dantes and St. Francises. Crea- 
tion requires of us infinite crucifixions 
which we shall never be able to con- 
summate alone. When I lie on my 
breasts on the sand and bury my 
face in my hands, all Nature receives 
me as a human bridegroom, and I 
sink through time to eternity creating 
space around me, that widens and 
narrows to the reaches of immor- 
tality. It is always on the sands 
that I find the friendliest depths, 
or in the snow drift of cold planets 

[35] 



upon a winter day or else within in 
the terrible energy of my body, as 
my heart beats time to the universal 
spheral rhythm. Think of the literal 
meaning of "universal!" Tonight in 
the silence I read Prometheus Bound, 
I love the grace of the boy's eyes. 
I pray to be guarded from the 
pride of humility. 

July 2y. 
... It was a day of silences, 
ffi I traced this figure idly on the 
sand today, and suddenly under- 
stood the symbolism of the scarab. 
But did the Egyptians anticipate the 
Redemption? As men are impressed 
by the face of the world, so is the 

[36] 



world impressed by their faces. The 
face, as mirror of the soul, shines 
forth with electricity and makes an 
impression on life, altering the song 
of those it acts upon as the violin 
sound alters the formation of sands 
resting on a tightened drum. By 
what ancient intuition does the Latin 
word ** malum" mean both "apple" 
and *' evil"? Music creates substance 
through the speed of gaiety, and God 
in His Creation is a cosmic humorist. 
(Cosmic means beautiful.) To dis- 
tinguish between fascination and 
sympathy is a counsel of perfection 
for critics which has its spiritual 
analogies. . . . Angels ran in hosts 
through the grasses. 

[37] 



July 28, 

"His soul's most secret thought, 
Eternal Light declares." 

I read LioneFs poems on the cliffs, 
and almost discovered the secret of 
the blue. Today for the first time 
I realized the remoteness of these 
islands, and it was a great joy. It 
was a golden day of sunshine on the 
cliffs with blue cloudless sky over 
quiet waters. Life is turning inward 
to the heart of silence, and out of 
it will come the beauty of my dream 
if life is willing. 

July 2Q. 
... I met a man today who knew 
beauty. He was a French country 
[38] 



lawyer. . . . The sunset tonight re- 
vealed all the sadness of the Burning 
Babe. I failed today. 

July 50. 
Another sadder failure of the will. 
Yet beauty came in the evening. 
The love of man, far more the love 
of God, is God in heaven descended 
upon earth, eternity made time in 
beauty, "majestic instancy," the 
Word made Flesh. The soul is the 
pool wherein God and we see our 
images, and Heaven will be the 
mutual contemplation of our souls. 
So that human love is the adoration 
of God in human flesh, and therein 
may the beloved be seen as the 

[39] 



image of God in time. The praise 
of Our Lady should then be the praise 
of God. Was this Patmore's secret? 
Or Dante's and Petrarch's? "My 
lady was desired in the high heaven." 
... I see now how in Heaven there 
is no marriage or giving in marriage. 
Far flowing ramparts of a starry 
world! The flammantia moenia 
mundi of Lucretius. To contem- 
plate Beauty FACE TO FACE! 
What a wonderful proof of the beauty 
of our souls. Twin mirrors of a single 
singing thought, the face of man look- 
ing into the Face of God, soul mingling 
with Soul in immortal music, bathed 
in the cool wind of Our Lady's eyes. 
Today I lost a nation in the cycle 

[40] 



of my soul. What is the blood but 
the history of my planets as engraved 
upon the constellations of my flesh? 
It is the book of the angel of judg- 
ment for the first syllable of my song, 
as the emotions, the intellect, and, alas, 
the will, for the second, third, and 
fourth. The flesh is the ebb tide 
from God, as the emotions are the 
flood. The inteflect is the second 
ebb, and in the wifl pray God 
that it may be flood! The other 
is Hefl. . . . 

July 3f. 

... A victory for the will this 

morning. . . . Tomorrow is the first 

of August, and I shall enter upon 

[41] 



my forty days. The ringing in my 
ears is the ringing of my fleshly 
stars "toned all in Time." I have 
commenced an anthology of high 
imaginings more worthy than a book 
of essays of that title I have loved 
and desired to use for years, — 
Flame and Dew, If rightly done, 
it may do poetry one of the greatest 
of services by assisting it to praise 
Beauty on many lips in naked Light. 
I wish to consecrate my work on it 
to that end. Today I have been 
influenced by Frederick Tennyson, 
Traherne, and Patmore. In agony 
lies the highest music. The key 
is struck by circumstance. Time's 
organist, and the stars tremble with 
[42] 



music. For the full thundering si- 
lence of Absolute Beauty a Divine 
Agony was necessary, so that all 
Heaven and its choirs and Hell 
trembled in the majesty of this 
stricken Doom. Death is the final 
chord, the passage of our full song 
from time to the silence of eternity. 
Sleep next to death is the most 
terrible life that soul and body 
knows. It is the center of the wheel 
radiating high powers to the circum- 
ference. The speed there is terrific, 
so fast that it hardens, again that 
"majestic instancy." The tiniest 
flame is the friction of conflicting 
** universes." Beauty is alike the 
center and circumference of infinity, 

[43] 



the silent wheel of omnipresent om- 
nipotence, wherein all thoughts are 
not timed but eternal. From eter- 
nity we were nothing : to eternity we 
are Beauty's image. Is it strange 
that in sleep we are often given sight? 

August I. 
Art is the exhibition of life in the 
light of eternity. I can conceive 
of no other adequate critical formula. 
This applies to painting, sculpture, ht- 
erature and music. Such too is the art 
of life, — the exhibition to God and 
man of life in the light of eternity. 
I have been startled to find a kinship 
between Wordsworth and Millet. 
I found it today in a stooped old 

[44] 



man who was traveling the roads 
with a walking stick and a heavy 
bundle of driftwood. He was worthy 
of a great painter or a great poet. 
By the sign of the cross one draws 
a magic circle round the soul which 
evil may not penetrate. It places 
one "in the name." On the seashore 
one should lie parallel with the waves 
facing inland. Then only may one 
advance onward with their prayer. 

August 2, 
It is absolutely true that only 
music may shape woods and foun- 
tains and the beauty of souls, for it 
is the only medium of expression 
which is pure. Pure music is th^ 

[45] 



true white magic, as black magic is 
music mixed with clay by human 
hands. Naked Beauty alone may 
mix music with clay in Its own 
image and likeness. Even poetry 
fails save in so far as it echoes the 
pure natural truths of music. And 
all creation may flow from a flute 
if the player breathes a prayer. 
Some day we shall have the great 
opera of the Incarnation and Re- 
demption. It is the ideal goal of 
music, and so of all art. But it 
demands the poet, the painter, and 
the sculptor, too, for its actors shall 
be immortal statues and a living 
chorus singing the passion of the 
race against the supreme dawn and 
[46] 



the supreme sunset. But its greatest 
moments will be silence. Christ 
and His Mother will live this silence 
in the glory of transfigured stone, 
and the drama will be played in the 
open with the stars above as orches- 
tra, to which the human music will 
be but a beautiful echo. To this 
Wagner and Craig point the way. 
I read Patmore's Two Infinities 
today with bewilderment and em- 
phatic disagreement. It seems abso- 
lutely lacking in vision, provincial, 
almost challenging Creation. And 
yet it is essentially true. Christ 
was a man of golden mediocrities. 
He speaks of the lihes of the field, 
but never of stars or of planets. 

[47] 



And St. Francis perhaps hints at 
the solution. To him brother Wind 
and brother Fire and brother Worm 
are alike and equal, for he sees 
them in the light of infinity. But 
all are wonderful, and we must not 
sneer at the stars. . . . Today writ- 
ing as a means of expression has 
seemed to be absolutely futile. 
Silence is the only active way of 
praise that I can find, provided 
that it informs some daily action. 
My will won again today. Horizons 

are wonderful. S told me that 

Lionel invited him into his Oxford 
rooms one evening at sunset and led 
him to a seat from which nothing 
lower than the horizon was to be 
[48] 



seen. "There," he said, "nothing 
matters that is below that line." 
You see he knew that our souls in 
their beauty are always above it. 

August 5. 
To watch a grass-blade tapping 
will teach you wonderful music — 
the language of the wind. The sun- 
light running through my flesh in- 
flames the song of the wifl. I lost 
myself tonight in the crowded 
silences. Joy stays with me now, 
and if I can only join it to sorrow, 
the win can then sing simply and 
freely a continuous song. The turn- 
ing of the tide is soon to come, and 
my homesickness for G ville is 

[49] 



transforming itself into a different 
nostalgia. My planets are rising in 
song like little candle flames. I 
wish I possessed their humility. 
Within me tonight are quiet moonlit 
waters very full and rich with silent 
promises of rest. 

August 4. 

At Mass today Mr. C showed 

a fine courtesy serving with the high 
humility of a punctilious gentleman. 
. . . Today I saw the body of Christ, 
"infinite riches in a little room." 
The human body of Christ in its 
passion is the sum of all our bodies, 
and it is this truth to which pan- 
theism in its blindness dimly beckons. 

[50] 



The saints and pure poets and those 
who have died for friends are the 
image of the Sacred Heart, and in 
them at moments of pure reflection 
there is naked light and the vision 
which is insupportable. Hence in 
the greatest saints the stigmata. 
All God's lonely ones are the reflec- 
tions of His pain when they attain 
to sanctity. And holy priests are 
the reflections of His Hands. Little 
children and saints may look into 
His Eyes and see their own. And 
repentant sinners may reflect His 
Feet in their tears. All the births 
and lives of the earth go to form His 
Human Body, which is vast as 
Eternity and radiating with Light 

[51I 



from all points and inward to the 
Heart of Light. To some saints it 
has been permitted to be the spouse 
of this body and soul. Magic is 
white or black. White magic is the 
offspring of spiritual marriage and 
is a sacrament. Black magic is the 
offspring of unauthorized spiritual 
contacts. My frame tonight is pos- 
sessed by angels dancing before the 
throne in a fearfully rapid rhythm. 
The secret of spiritual achievement 
is unremitting labor urged without 
ceasing by a fearful joy. No drama 
is more vast than that of the cruci- 
fixion, and yet I have seen it all in 
the heart of a strawberry blossom 
with wounds all glorified in an ecstasy 
[52] 



of living trembling light, and heard 
the beating of His Sacred Heart 
while universe called out to universe 
in the anguish of His surrender and 
all the stars died into the Light of 
Eternity. The tide has turned. 

August 5. 
Today looking into a narrow dome 
I saw the seeded planets banded by 
circles of light whereon they turned. 
And color changed into silence at 
the bidding of the central suns. 
And these were the eyes of happy 
innocence wherein all others died 
to the Living Light, God being in 
them by their childishness. The 
tide turned yesterday, and today I 

[53] 



have spent entirely in eternity sur- 
rounded by a host of fair-winged 
Possibilities, God's angels to human- 
ity. Death is glorified by their pas- 
sage from the future to the past, 
and we respond by plunging our 
lights into the Light wherein it dies. 
Abt Vogler is the musical phi- 
losophy of it all. At my first sym- 
phony concert as a little boy, I saw 
the face of the dying Christ through 
the wall, and in it the music of the 
seventh Symphony sang through the 
naked eyes calling me inward to 
the Sacred Heart. This morning 
and noon at table I smiled at white 
horizons and in the evening I swam 
through the Host on my future 

[54] 



wings. We love earth, air, fire, and 
water now, but the eternal joy of 
swimming through the Light of God 
and reflecting His Light in song 
and silence is the infinity of all 
poets' dreams incarnate in the awful 
speed of Absolute Music. It is the 
privilege of laughing into the Eyes 
of God, those Eyes before which 
the angels veil their faces. It is 
the privilege of smelhng the blossom 
of the Living Rose, of tasting and con- 
suming forever the Body and Blood, 
of touching the Sacred Knees, and 
of hearing the Divinity who is Music. 
Priests and poets shall swim in the 
song of his heart, and those who have 
died for friends will reflect its re- 

[55] 



solving rhythm. How I pity Blake 
his pride, though he was preserved 
from the pride of humility. God will 
let me see more of Him in this hfe 
than Blake did, though it is of the 
most trifling significance to antici- 
pate eternity in poor time, the crip- 
pled heir of original sin. Since it 
is to be, I wish with all my blood 
that my will were worthier. 

August 6. 

A day of happy drudgery reading 
proofs. I rode through them in 
the winds of eternity. That is the 
secret of it all, — to teach us joy. 
The human symbol of it is a martyr's 
ecstasy, which is in no way sensuous 

[56] 



or voluptuous since it has completely 
forgotten the body. The Sacred 
Heart is the Mystical Rose spreading 
Its petals over the Cross of Time. 
In Flame and Dew is the first 
application of an idea and belief 
that the day will come when antholo- 
gies will be books containing the 
wisdom of the poets on special 
sciences, such as the science of child- 
hood, the science of love, the science 
of death, and the science of silence. 

August 7. 
Imagination being Eternal Life, 
it shows the blind instinct of lan- 
guage that the word should mean the 
creation of images. Imagination is 

[57] 



the instrument of God's creation in 
his own image and likeness. Today 
I came to Petrarch and Dante — 
the mystics of the supreme elements. 
To contrast their serenity with 
Blake's wrath shows the whiter 
heights. All height is inward through 
narrow circles to the Central Fire 
of Silent Love from which the angels 
shrink in spiral messages of inspiring 
flame, and toward which humanity 
aspires in narrowing and advancing 
circles of expiring flesh. But depth 
is outward to the hearts of men. 
Sirius sings to my living stars tonight 
its light in the music of the ancient 
winds, telling me of the crucifixion 
in burning colors of a dying world. 
[58] 



Why am I unworthy of an equal 
death? The blood runs toward it 
in a passion of harmony. The day 
is near when my morning stars shall 
sing their lives out together in praise 
of their Creator, though it is futile 
to measure it in terms of time. One 
is not curious of time if one lives in 
eternity. Death is then only the 
fulfilment of our operative desires. 
I wish that I were one of the tears 
of God. Joy is for those oj good will. 

August 8. 

I met one of Wordsworth's old 

men today gathering faggots on 

the shore. "I have been to all 

places and cities and I found no one 

[59] 



happy on the world, and now I 
wish me to be dead." . . . Tonight 
I bowed in silence under the vault 
of stars. To be holy is to lose the 
knowledge of good and evil through 
"clinging Heaven by the hems." 
To refuse evil is to refuse the apple 
(malum) of the Tree of Knowledge. 
There is no possibiHty of finding the 
ideal unless we look passionately for 
nothing but the beauty of souls, 
seeing therein God's image and refus- 
ing to perceive the clouds of evil. 
Circles lead to Heaven, but straight 
lines to Hell. Straight lines are the 
tangents that **err" from the sphere 

of the ideal. Miss C told me about 

a little boy who was visiting Italy 
[60] 



with his mother. He fell down hill, 
and stopped before a roadside cruci- 
fix. And then he forgot his fall. 
They found him crying as if his heart 
would break, and he told them that 
it was because he was so sorry for 
that sad Man whom everybody had 
made suffer so. The angels drop 
seed into our souls which make them 
invisible to other men, and we also 
may plant seed with modesty and 
humihty. It is God's fernseed to 
mortals. How strange it is that we 
measure time by moons, cold sat- 
elHtes, and thus the symbol of 
death. But after all time is the dark 
night of the soul. I realized for the 
first time today that I was born in 

[6il 



December, the month of creation, 
when the flame turns in upon itself 
in the hard cold earth and gives birth 
to high hopes whose fulfilment are 
in eternity. It is the month of 
Christmas on that account. I have 
begun to perceive what awful wings 
my thoughts have, and know that 
they are given them by God through 
me to carry them humbly into the 
most secret circle of the Sacred 
Breast. We must do the labor of 
God with human hands, yet the 
Labor of God is the Creation of 
Beauty. As the vegetable kingdom 
renews its life once a year through 
time and so preserves its secret, our 
souls must renew themselves in in- 
[62] 



finite recurrence through eternity. 
Our life differs only in ardor which 
is speed. The greatest speed lies 
in submission, for submission is the 
greatest strength. At high moments 
it is Atlas supporting the earth. At 
the supreme moment, it becomes the 
mystery of the Redemption. . 

August 9. 
Singing through the universal stars 
that were woven into His Flesh, I 
saw the Son of God tonight glorified 
in the joy of a living Smile. And all 
the angels bowed laughing toward 
Him and clapped and danced before 
His Name, though the sum of their 
song was silence. And then every 

[63] 



living star was scourged by the sins 
of men, and died into the darkness, 
saying *'Thy Will be done," and it 
was morning with the Eucharist in 
the sky. Only Redemption trembled 
through the air. The stars are the 
eternal reflections of God's patience, 
for they endure His Human Passion, 
since together they form the shadow 
of the Word made Flesh. They are 
the singing echo in time of God's 
speechless patience, as we are destined 
to be if we conquer our wills. But 
patience is suff'ering, and Alpha must 
submit to the yoke of Omega. Since 
God is the Alpha and Omega he caused 
the Incarnation and Passion. THE 
IDEAL OF HUMAN LIFE IS THE 

[64] 



PASSIONATE REDEMPTION OF 
THE WILL. This is life's darkest 
secret, unless we live in the Euchar- 
ist. We are to be the silent reflec- 
tions of speechless patience in the 
still waters of eternity. The evil 
came when Lucifer stole fire from 
heaven and brought it down to men. 
Conquer fire, and we conquer the 
will. Then heaven is ours. My 
body and blood ache with my prayer 
for it. 

August 10, 

The angels weave what God 

creates, according to their functions. 

His archangels are the weavers of 

time, and all the others of material 

I65] 



nature, uninformed by a soul. This 
is a branch of the heavenly song. 
To weave God's image is the function 
of the saints and of all those on earth. 
It is the wonder of incarnate Music 
that saved the world, Absolute 
Silence born into Sound, and dying 
with all Sound into Silence. The 
archangels are God's messengers of 
life and death, for they control the 
days. But they are sent from Him 
to His Image, and our weaving is 
made out of their materials as we 
adapt them to our song. All outer 
powers and forces are brought us 
by the angels, and among the dearest 
to God's heart are his flame-winged 
Possibilities that hover on the border- 
[66] 



line between today and tomorrow, 
Time and Eternity. They alone 
may not enter time unless we beckon 
them. The starry heaven is the 
heaven of the body; the crystal 
sphere, of the intellect; and the 
empyrean, of the pure soul. We 
may live in the starry heaven in this 
Kfe, if God gives us the grace. But 
it is then a heaven of desire. But 
the weaving of the angels is the whole 
philosophy of nature. Their music 
explains its sympathies and sorrows, 
its deaths and resurrections, and 
above all its solemn silences of night 
and noon. And the song of their 
weaving becomes nature's love of 
wisdom, that is to say, adoration of 

[67] 



the Word. The saints are the only 
complete philosophers. The object 
of asceticism is generally misunder- 
stood, particularly in one phase of 
its endeavors, — to forget the body. 
The truth of the matter is that the 
flesh and blood in their highest 
song toward which we should strive 
are so occupied with praising God 
that they completely lack self-con- 
sciousness, and do not distract the 
intellect or the will. God is with 
them in naked purity. It is His 
simplest and dearest starry music. 
He demands that our Hfe should 
be a programme of infinite propor- 
tions. And yet I wonder if a saint 
can ever be both a great prophet 
[68] 



and a great apostle. I do not believe 
a great prophet can be tender enough 
to persuade. That is why prophets 
are scorned or ignored by their 
generation. Gentleness is the abso- 
lute breath of music, which alone 
can penetrate the soul or even the 
material body of nature. The su- 
preme gentleness of St. Francis of 
Assisi made the birds hsten to his 
music, for his breath ran dancing 
in a cool breeze through all their 
singing stars. We need a St. Francis 
at present burningly. Is it possible 
to form a religious order of the 
poets? Here is an ideal. But it 
must be Franciscan: a gown, a 
girdle, and sandals, poverty, chastity, 

[69] 



and obedience. Where is the wise 
man to obey? I can believe that 
jewels are potent for good or evil, 
since they are condensed flame and 
a secret word lies hidden in each of 
their hearts. A day of tempestuous 
wind and rain. 

August II. 

Today I found myself progressing 
slowly to a triumphant rhythm round 
the circumference of a vast musical 
plane. The celestial earth is flat 
but progresses upwards to its central 
point, the cone of aspiration and 
song. And then I remembered the 
vision of St. Frances of Rome where- 
in she saw the Supreme Godhead as 

[70] 



a vast Circle of Light in the midst of 
which was a Pillar, the Cone of 
Redemption and Silence. Death is 
the point of meeting. Perhaps the 
Zodiac is the merry-go-round of the 
stars. A second day of tempest. 
The great message of future poetry 
will be to proclaim that nature is 
the expression of man, rather than 
man of nature, and thus to reveal 
the essential nobility of man as the 
image of God rather than the image 
of nature. Suns and winds and 
waters are what we make them. 
Pantheism confuses the image of 
the image with the face. Nature is 
the mirror of man as man is the mir- 
ror of God. Nay more, nature is the 

[71I 



mirror in time of man's eternity, 
as man is the image in time and 
eternity of God. It is for this reason 
that the stars are the open book of 
the future, though they are not to 
be read by men aloud. Astrology 
is forbidden because it violates the 
precept of silence, which is the 
courtesy we pay as gentlemen to 
God. We may only read the stars 
in little children's eyes, wherein 
their future is concealed. The breast 
of Mary is the fountain of the stars, 
and round it fly the seraphim in 
flaming adoration of the blessed 
womb. Her eyes are God's dew, 
wherein the secret of His Light is 
whispered by the thrones. I felt 

[72] 



through the morning His human 
Presence graciously walking the 
roads, and I was resting on His left 
Arm that brought me to His Heart, 
the country wherein the dreams of 
my will are born. 

August 12, 

I have been sick today. Rain 
and tempest, but God was on the 
wind, and I am happy. 

August 15. 

Still ill. Rain and fog with inter- 
mittent sunshine. But I am as 
happy as I have ever been. 

August 14, 
Still ill. Fog in the morning break- 
ing into a wonderful pearl day of 

[73] 



summer haze. Our bodily senses 
are instruments in our orchestra. 

August 15. 
Today I sank into Beauty several 
times in the sunlight. 

August 16. 
Read through the last proofs and 
on the dunes with my mother in the 
afternoon I lived in the light of God. 
The sun I caused to smile and I 
wrapped myself in the blue of the 
Virgin's sky. I found myself causing 
a shower twice by failing in humility. 
But the laughing Light of God's 
eyes in my soul is eternal, and when 
I submit it controls the tides of my 

[74] 



body and mind. Tonight a wood- 
pecker alighted on Father K 's 

shoulder and stayed with him nearby. 
The Brahmin may attain to the 
shadow of the first syllable of the 
Word. He does not beheve that 
there are others. Om is simply the 
symbol of inward breath, inspiration. 
I heard myself today very near to 
the Heart of Silence, whose systole 
and diastole is the ebb and flow of 
Love from Eternity to Eternity. 
Time is the sound of silence and is 
dead to all eternity. It is the only 
beautiful death that the angels do 
not mourn, for in the death of Time 
is the Redemption of the World. 
It takes the circle of eternity to 

[75] 



unite the four points ot the cross, 
and a crucifixion to unite two par- 
allel lines. 

August ly. 
Out of the summer I am weaving 
the pattern web of the future in 
threads of desire. Every resurrec- 
tion of a body is the last judgment 
of infinite planets, which fly to or 
flee from the human song of God's 
first syHable. Yet those that flee 
may be purchased by an infinite 
Redemption. This opens a terrible 
possibility of mercy. Is God con- 
tinually becoming man for the love 
of His image? This is the joyful 
secret of God's sad fourth syllable. 

[76] 



I clothe it in words to guard it from my 
intellect. Infinite incarnations prove 
time an illusion, since they make 
it eternity. God*s Sacred Heart is 
the silent ocean beyond the universe. 
It reflects. The Incarnation is its 
flood. The Host tonight was more 
white than shining silver in a lonely 
pearl sky. It was Absolute Music 
unveiled to the human eye. Tonight 
I stood out for long alone with the 
stars, and watched a thunderstorm 
come over the sea. We must guard 
our dreams and intuitions not only 
from the inteflects of others but 
most of all from our own. Yet our 
faith must be precisely bounded, 
although this boundary is to be none 

[77] 



other than the infinite succession 
of points where time and eternity 
meet and bow down before God. 
This morning I saw His Beauty in 
a daisy. ... I do not believe that 
God will reveal His mysteries if we 
seek to know them, without inflicting 
a penalty. The way of knowledge 
is the way of silent patience, which 
lies quietly dreaming of Love till 
the flood washes it with Living 
Light. 

August i8. 

Every time we look into another's 
soul we may enter Paradise. There is 
an indescribable grace in the air this 
first day of prescient autumn. The 

[78] 



summer has taught me the secret of 
loneliness and the infinite way of sat- 
isfying its desire. To be alone with 
God we must be intimate with the 
beauty in the eyes of every face, and yet 
absolutely detached save from one's 
family and friend. Life's ideal is 
to see the end in the beginning, and 
act the road between. This is no 
other than the eternal life of the 
Alpha and Omega. But the essence 
of it in time is that the whole tide 
of humanity should ebb and flow 
in our breast. It requires a cruci- 
fixion to drink in all its saltness. 
I found the dunes beyond the lagoon 
this morning and sank into God in 
the wind of the sunht blue. When 

[79] 



I returned, the people were coming 
from Church. Tonight the Host 
was quivering gold, and as I write 
the planets are ringing in my ears. 
I pray that at the end I may come 
to the Heart of Eternal Silence. 

August ig. 
On the dunes this morning toward 
Wonder Island . . . Eternity is in- 
finite speed. Time is the dragwheel, 
nothing more. Hence the signifi- 
cance of **when eternity reaffirms 
the conception of an hour." Flame 
is the symbol of time as dew is the 
symbol of eternity. They meet in 
Christ and through Him in the 
human race. The moon properly 
[80] 



loved is the kindness of time, as the 
sun is the reflected love of Eternity 
made Flesh in the Host on the altar. 
. . . Tonight I desire only silence 
to love. 

August 20. 

On the dunes toward Wonder 
Island this morning I lost space and 
walked upon the blue ringing a 
cycle of stars in either hand. But 
I felt no sense of distance and the 
seed of the sands blew on the wind 
which carried me. It taught me 
how to walk softly through life, 
and coming home I had the sand in 
my hair. I know now what clouds 
are, softer than the breasts of doves. 

t8i] 



God's flying sorrows are the sandals 
of the soul. They make us His 
angels, Mercuries of Light. The sun 
has not bled for many a night, but 
has slowly descended in silver splen- 
dor, always a second dawn with its 
fresh, keen, cool surprises. Today 
was the grace of last night's desire. 
The wonder of it this morning was 
my complete surrender, the assur- 
ance with which I moved on the 
singing skies as my native element. 
I know that only the appearances 
remained, as in the Eucharist after 
the Consecration we seem to see the 
bread and wine. Life was the poise 
of infinity, and I knew of no horizon, 
for I could look down upon the dawn. 
[82] 



It came two weeks ago Sunday in 
my heart. I see the mystery of the 
Resurrection in its beauty, and why 
white lilies are its deepest symbol. 
How can there be a prison or a cage? 
Every twilight is a white horizon. 
The gulls know that and the sea 
tonight has lost its sorrow. 

August 21. 
By sailboat to P and G 



with the silent man, returning with 
the stars. Their hosting was hke the 
flocking of wild geese, and they 
followed St. Francis of Assisi as a 
leader, the captain of the morning 
stars. In the silence I heard the 
operation of the divine mathematics. 

[83] 



I loved those Chaldean seers to 
whom God talked directly and wrote 
His message upon the stars. I lay 
prone on the deck looking upwards 
and fell into the Divine Ocean 
slowly. The moon rode serenely to 
the southwest, and humanity was 
with me in the boat. Navigators 
are now the only »men left wise enough 
to follow the stars. The sunpath was 
Jacob's ladder, and the Aran island- 
ers know its secret when they see 
Tir-n'an-Og in the west on calm 
sunset evenings. The sea had my 
trust, eternal through yesterday's 
experience, and I believe that if 
faith and good works required it 
of me, I could walk softly over it. 
[84] 



If the soul is to control the body, 
surely spiritual gravity should be 
able to overcome material gravity. 
Certainly it would take more than 
the sea to quench my flame, if 
God made me worthy. 

August 22. 
I looked down from great heights 
today on all the little smiling intima- 
cies. They are like happy babies 
to me, and my speech should play 
with them, if I can ever become 
worthy of their simplicity. The 
rhythm of all music is the systole 
and diastole of the Sacred Heart, 
which is the ebb and flow of an 
infinite ocean. This is the meaning, 

[85] 



I think, of the old Gaelic rune, 
Ri tragadh sWi lionadhy mar a bha, 
mar a tha, mar a bhitheas gu bragh 
ri traghadh s'ri lionadh. (The ebb 
and the flow, as it was, as it is, as it 
ever shall be, the ebb and the flow.) 
The resolute gaze of the soul toward 
this in love constitutes prayer in 
its only form. It shows blood to be 
the most rich and beautiful of human 
things, and its salt waves purify the 
flesh, as the salt waves of Geth- 
semane and Calvary redeemed the 
soul and its singing stars. 

August 23. 
My life so far has been a word, and 
not a deed. But the world was 
[86] 



not redeemed until the Word BE- 
CAME FLESH— AND DWELT 

AMONGST US. Mary S met 

us on the roads today and said, "I 
hope that we'll be meeting in Heaven, 
we seem to meet so often now." 
I sleep at night in a cruciform posi- 
tion adoring beauty with every 
faculty save my will, the most 
necessary of all. 

August 24. 
In the open today amid a hurri- 
cane of wind ... I walked with a 
childish old man with a pleasant 
soul. The wind brought meteor 
showers of beauty to the body. It 
rained grace in the sky of noon. 

[87] 



I could carry overflowing happiness 
now even to New York. Today 
reminded me of the sunlight on the 
roar of Broadway. God is on the 
wind tonight, and is beating down 
my will with his wings. 

August 2^, 
I lay through a night of tempest- 
uous wind with the open window at 
my head. I awoke and saw myself 
face to face in my weakness. It 
rained all day. ... I can hardly 
bear my love today. It is a terrific 
dynamo of silence. But it will be 
very long before I shall fulfill my 
worthiness. If one could always 
remember that he is a saviour, and 
[88] 



carry humanity with him, his will 
would be inflexible and every act 
an exulting humility. All nature is 
but a mantle which the wind of my 
spirit disposes in folds about me, 
and humanity is the chalice in which 
I may communicate with God, — 
a chalice woven of our singing flesh 
and heart and brain and will, wherein 
the will is its depth, the Atlas which 
bears the Sacred Body and Blood 
when it is given to us. 

August 26. 

Sorrow has come at last. Full 

moon, and life is at the flood. The 

precept of all adversity is of course 

that the ebb tide of fortune is our 

[89] 



flood toward God. Even the lamp 
tonight is singing in the room. 

August 2y. 

The experience still turns inward 
to the heart of life. I now see the 
core of it. It burns, of course, but 
think of the wheel it carries. A few 
days ago I was on the circumference. 
Now I have found the center. A 
day of rain and wind and exterior 
disturbances. But I have found my 
cenacle. 

August 28, 

A victory for the will. ... It is 
strange that every vital lesson that 
experience teaches can never be 
expressed in words. The past few 

[90] 



days have taught me more than the 
rest of the summer. There will 
always be a secrecy of the soul, and 
what this contains constitutes God's 
image and Hkeness. Life sings to- 
night in every atom its marvelous 
chemistry of change and prophecy. 
Nature knows no elegies, since it 
may never triumph over aught but 
dust. But the highest dream is less 
worthy than the simplest deed, and 
we must forget the knowledge of 
good and evil. I would exchange 
all the knowledge I have gained 
for the grace to perform the shghtest 
act of St. Francis. God has made our 
opportunity infinite by giving us an 
eternal standard of values, — that is all. 

l9i] 



August 2g. 
I am afraid to write further for 
fear that I shall soon become self- 
conscious. ... It is strange that 
the will did not come home to me as 
a complete experience before. I 
simply had the foreboding of it. 
This summer on the 9th of August 
I heard the Fourth Syllable in its 
awfulness for the first time, and 
understood the mystery of the Re- 
demption. The time has now come 
to close this book, for the record is 
complete, and may not be reopened 
until I redeem my will. 

They departed into their own country 
another way, 

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